God'll Cut You Down (31 page)

“Ha-ha! Who said anything about doing sixty-five years?”

Vincent says a day is knocked off for every day served, if he behaves.

“I can get out in thirty!”

“Thirty years is still a lot of time.”

“Yeah,” he mutters sadly, “it’s a lot of time, dude. A lot of time.”

The purple sky is dimming. I twist the headlights to full.

“Do you know a lot about when your family first came to Mississippi?” I ask. “Like, your grandparents and your great-grandparents. How long have they been in Mississippi?”

“I wouldn’t even know, you know what I’m sayin’? I know I’ve got some people staying in Las Vegas, Chicago, you know, I’ve got some people spread out, but I ain’t never heard . . . Nobody never did sit me down and talk to me about shit like that, you hear?”

Vincent sounds as glum as “it’s a lot of time, dude.” Before I left Australia, my dad was telling me a story about his dad I’d never heard before, that he built planes in Germany. Then he immigrated before World War II and started building warplanes for Australia. He told the plant owners about the superior clutches they built in his factory in Germany. So
the Australian plant changed designs, and the warplanes flew with the Safran clutch.

“I ain’t never had no role models and shit. When I come around, my people, they tell me to just get out the house, you hear?”

Vincent chuckles sadly. I ask him about his father, JD. “I met my dad really about three times in my whole life, right? The last time I met him, I stayed with him about a year. And that was the last time I’ve seen him, though.”

“Oh really, how old were you when you stayed with him for a year?”

“About twelve, going on thirteen. I would have liked to know him, you hear? I never had somebody, you know what I’m sayin’, just show me right from wrong. ’Cause I really didn’t know what right from wrong was till I got older and learned, you know what I’m sayin’? Like, you can say, ‘The Bible guides’ and all this. You can tell somebody something, but if you don’t give them the meaning and all that, and show them the example, then all they know is the words, you hear? I just knew the words—I ain’t know what they do, you hear?”

“Where does JD live? Does he live in Jackson?”

“I don’t know where he stay.”

I don’t feel so bad that Cornelius and I haven’t been able to track him down, either.

“When you got sentenced, sixty-five years, none of your family was there in the court.”

“Nobody went—there wasn’t nobody there, you hear? There was nobody there but strangers. Even those strangers, you know what I’m sayin’, showing me more support than my own people, you hear?”

I turn to phone-Vincent.

“I was there,” I tell him. “I saw it.”

“You were there?” Vincent sparks up.

“Yeah, I was there. I saw it. You were wearing a yellow jumpsuit.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He giggles. “I didn’t see you out there, motherfucker!”

“I was trying to be, you know, just inconspicuous.”

“Oh, that’s what’s up.” He chuckles.

I catch my face in the car mirror. A bedraggled near-Afro springs atop my head. The shaving cut scab runs down my throat.

“Someone told me that the last time you were in jail you had some medication to keep you calm. And then when you left you stopped having the medication and that might have been why you got so violent.”

“I was taking medication for seeing things, you know what I’m sayin’, because there was a voice in my head telling me to kill people dead.”

My arms tighten up.

“I had depression,” he says. “I was taking a lot of shit.”

“So, even last time you were in jail there was a voice in your head saying to kill people?”

“Yeah, it’s still in here, it comes around sometimes.”

“Wow, that’s pretty scary. So what, you just suddenly start hearing a voice? What does it sound like? Is it you? Or is it like an angel?”

“It’ll be a whisper and it’ll be calling my name, like, in a whisper, and I’d be looking there, and nothing’d be there. It’d be saying shit like
Kill
and shit like that. It’d be whispering to me, you hear?”

“No way! Are you telling the truth?”

“I’m dead serious. Then I’d be seeing the grim reaper and all that shit.”

“Really? I wish I could see your face now to see whether you’re telling the truth or joking.”

“I’m dead serious. I ain’t here laughing.”

“How old were you when you first saw things?”

“I was old. I was about nineteen, twenty. Something like that. But ever since I was little I used to see, I used to see all types of strange things, you know what I’m sayin’? Like, to this day I feel if I’m in the room with the lights off, I can see red—every color—and it be little balls, like drops of water, floating around the room. I can see anytime in the room with the light off. When it’s on I don’t see it, when the light goes off I can just see all these colors floatin’ around, and they look like raindrops.”

“What . . . what do you reckon it is?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you reckon it’s ’cause you took drugs or do you reckon it’s, like, angels or something?”

“I believe it’s something like—I don’t know about no angels—I’d say it’s energy or something, you hear?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Like, like, energy. I could see it anytime with the lights down low.”

“And is it scary or is it good?”

“It ain’t scary, you know what I’m sayin’? It’s like looking at a rainbow, but broke down into little drops, you hear?”

“And what . . . what about the voices? The voices must be scary, though?”

“Hell, yeah. Those motherfuckers keep me up many nights. I hear . . . I hear stuff callin’ my name. I wake up in my sleep, sweatin’. You know what I mean? I remember this one night I woke up and I was just laughing, you hear, and I just couldn’t stop laughing, and that just scared the hell out of me.”

“You were laughing when you were still asleep and you didn’t know?”

“Yeah, and I woke up laughing, though. Still laughing. I couldn’t stop.”

“Oh, no!”

“I believe I’m possessed, man, like
The Exorcist
or something.”

“Really?! No way, you really reckon you are?”

“Oh, nigga, I tell ya, like, I’m wide awake, you hear? I’m layin’ on my back and the grim reaper reached into my chest and he was pulling, like, he was pulling all the energy up out my back, and I resisted and everything went back to normal.”

“How did you resist it?”

“I just, like . . . I couldn’t move my hands and stuff, it was, like, my will, you know what I’m sayin’, like I had the will. I feel he was gonna snap my soul up. And in my mind I was, like, pullin’ back, but I wasn’t movin’ my body, you hear?”

My foot pushes down and the streetlights speed by like balls of flame.

“Is Richard the only person you’ve killed?”

“I ain’t gonna get into that.”

“Oh, you’re not going to get into that? Oh, okay, that’s ominous, but fair enough. Of course.”

“What you talkin’ about?” he whines. “You’re talking about stuff that could get me more time. Yeah, we’re talking about shit that’s already happened.”

“Yep, no, I understand. Your cousin, Michael Dent, he sort of feels that you got him in a lot of trouble that he didn’t need to get into.”

“Man, fuck Michael Dent!” he spits. “You hear? I don’t need fuck with Michael Dent!”

“That’s fair enough.”

“I hate, you know what I’m sayin’, that he got into this trouble an’ all. And that’s why I gotta say
shit
happen, you know what I’m sayin’? And I can’t change the fact.”

Vincent’s voice cracks on
fact
, like he’s crying or he’s high just for that one word.

“The investigators said that Michael is a criminal, but he’s not really as violent and as dangerous as you.”

“I’m a human being, man,” Vincent says earnestly, “you know what I’m sayin’?”

“Sure.”

“Shit, Michael Dent, he’d probably, you know what I’m sayin’, kill a motherfucker or whatever he do—he gonna do his thing. Shit, if
you
get in a wrong situation,
you
would kill, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, uncertain.

“In the Bible, it say there’s a time for everything. There’s a time to kill and there’s a time for peace and there’s a time for war, you hear?”

“And do you think when you’ve killed it’s been the time for war?”

“It was the time to kill, you hear? You know, just think, if you was a young man, you hear, and you only twenty-two, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I was startin’ up my little rap career and everything. And then shit. And you’re faced with this life-or-death situation, you
know what I’m sayin’? You ain’t seen no more bad things and all of a sudden you got a obstacle in your way—somebody’s trying to kill you, so what you gonna do? You gonna defend yourself the best you can. You know what I’m sayin’? That’s what I did, you hear?”

“But people say that because he was a sixty-five-year-old man he wasn’t strong enough to kill you. That’s why they’re suspicious about your story. Because they’re saying, because you’re young and strong, that you would have been able to . . . even if Richard had attacked you, that you would have been able to stop him without having to kill him.”

“That’s where they lying,” he objects. “The man was strong to me. I’ve seen the man take an ax and chop a motherfuckin’ tree down, you hear? You know it’s all about how you keep your body in shape, you hear?”

“Oh, so you think Richard was strong enough to kill you?”

“No, I ain’t gonna say all that, know what I’m sayin’? I don’t feel like no one’s strong enough to kill me.”

“You were saying that you blacked out when you stabbed Richard, but is that true? Did you really black out or are you just saying that so you don’t have to take responsibility?”

“I was sayin’ that because it was some, like, outta-body experience, you hear? It was like I see everything that happened but I really couldn’t control it, it was like I couldn’t control it, you know what I’m sayin’? Like, once I got in that mode, I all the way in that mode. It’s like, just say you step out of your body and you just sit there watchin’ yourself do this, and you know you need to stop it, but your mind and your heart won’t let you stop it.”

“And were you scared when you were doing it? Or were you . . . were you thrilled?”

“I was thrilled. I ain’t gonna lie, you know what I’m sayin’? It’s like an adrenaline rush. But, you know, I’m sane. I’m a sane human being, know what I’m sayin’? I don’t walk around causin’ people problems for no reason.”

“Yeah. But once you kind of got into it, you just couldn’t stop, and it was, like, exhilarating?”

“Right. Like a high or something, you hear?”

“Yeah. Wow.”

“It was like I gained strength from it, you hear? Just to tell you the truth about the situation, I gained strength.”

“You gained strength from it?”

“Yeah. Like I got his power. Like I got his power, man, like real tough, you know, man? It’s like I had pumped all the way up—felt like I could jump through the roof!”

“And do you reckon he was dead when you left him the first night? Or do you reckon he was still a bit alive?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. I ain’t checkin’ his pulse, you hear?”

I cough out a laugh. “The woman who did the autopsy, she told me that she didn’t know when he died; he could have been, like, alive all night, but she didn’t know.”

“I doubt that, though.”

“And when you went in the next morning, was he just . . . He must have not been moving?”

“He was just laying up.”

“And he was definitely dead then?”

“Yessir.”

“Wow. And so did you try to move his body about some, or did you just leave it there?”

“When it first happened, the first night, I tried to move him, know what I’m sayin’? That’s why I tied the belt on, around the arm, tried to move him, know what I’m sayin’, ’cause, like, I knew they was going to try to pin something on me. ’Cause I was a black man and I had been institutionalized two times already. And I knew, know what I’m sayin’? Once they catch up and find out what happened, they won’t take my side of the story. Just look at the whole situation, right? So I had, know what I’m sayin’, to cover up what I did. Out of fear of going back to jail, know what I’m sayin’? I ain’t wanna go back to jail—penitentiary. This ain’t no place for a human being to live, you hear?”

“Yeah.”

“This right here will make you out an animal, you hear?”

“And so where were you trying to drag him? You stabbed him in the kitchen, but then were you trying to drag him somewhere else?”

“I was gonna put him in a truck, drive him somewhere to bury him, you hear?”

“Oh! I get it. Where were you going to take him?”

“I ain’t gonna spill all this tonight, you hear?”

I laugh, maybe out of nerves, but throw back another question.

“And how long did you drag him before you realized it was gonna be too hard?”

“I didn’t say it was gonna be too hard, you know what I’m sayin’? I ain’t wanna run back up the street and be seen, though. And the truck was locked up in the, uh, garage, so I said fuck him. Left him now, you hear me? And I come back and see him tomorrow, cleaned up.”

“Sure.”

“But then I got—know what I’m sayin’—I tell everybody what happened. They was like, ‘Shit, man, you gonna go to jail for life.’ I’m like, ‘Man, hell no.’ I say, ‘Shit, I’m gonna go burn the whole house down.’”

My road trip buddy and me laugh.

“You know,” I tell him, “they said you screwed up because you didn’t leave the windows open, so it was hard for the fire to start. You should have, like, opened the doors a bit more to let air come through to help the fires go.”

“That’s what I said!” He laughs ruefully. “I was sittin’ down in my cell one day. I thought about it, there was shit I could have did, you hear?”

“Sure.”

“Too little, too late, man. You know, learn from your mistakes.”

“And um, what was Richard saying when you were stabbing him—was he telling you to stop?”

“Nah, he said one thing, you know, he scream my name, you know, he screamed like, ‘Vincent!’ He was attacking me, too, you hear?” he adds defensively. “I had scratches on me, you know what I’m sayin’? This, like what I said, nobody want to hear my side of the story. All they want
to do is make me out as a murderer, know what I’m sayin’? ‘You killed him’; that’s all. They don’t want to hear ‘Okay, he had a knife,’ they don’t want to hear it. All they wanted to hear was ‘We got our man. He’s gonna do time.’”